Shropshire students enjoy historic work experience placements

Sixteen students from schools all over Shropshire have learnt about the county’s long and fascinating history after completing work experience placements with Shropshire Council’s Archives and Museums service.

Over the past few weeks the students have worked on a fantastic range of collections, including 300-year-old Shrewsbury documents, and geological specimens dating from hundreds of millions of years ago.

Alice, a student from Ludlow Church of England School, said: “In my two weeks’ work experience, I have taken part in a wide range of jobs at Ludlow Museum Resource Centre. These include setting up displays for the new exhibition ‘Every Object Tells a Story’ and researching the objects – one was a mummified cat found in the roof of a house in Ludlow – taking photos of minerals and cataloguing them; and making up museum boxes of interesting objects.

“My work experience has been a great two weeks, full of interesting opportunities and projects. Everyone has been very supportive, and my time here has been great fun.”

Other students completing placements came from: Thomas Adams School, Wem; Shrewsbury High School for Girls; Cruckton Hall School; the Priory School, Shrewsbury; and Idsall School, Shifnal.

Tina Woodward, Shropshire Council’s deputy Cabinet member responsible for visitor economy said:

“It’s great to see so many Shropshire students having the opportunity to experience such interesting and varied work experience placements within our heritage services. I hope they will be able to build on this very valuable experience in their future careers.”

For further details about Shropshire Archives see www.shropshirearchives.org.uk, call 01743 255350, or email archives@shropshire.gov.uk.